I'm always amazed at the bargains I find at our local Flowers Bread store. They sell Sunbeam, Cobblestone Mills, Roman Meal and various restaurant label breads at a fraction of the price you'd pay for the same bread at the supermarket. (I've found better prices & a wider selection at our local store than at the Colonial Bread store where my mom lives.)

The bread is usually pulled off the supermarket shelf, or restaurant shelf, on the day of or the day before its sell by date. So it's not 'old' when you buy it ... for example today, I bought sliced bread, rolls, bagels, and english muffins that had a July 28th sell by date. The bread will last several days after the sell by date, and freezes just as well as any other bread.

I generally don't care for frozen and thawed bread, so I try to only buy a week's worth at a time, and always visit on Monday's which are their big sale days. Sometimes they have day old bread and hot dog and hamburger buns even cheaper ... 3 loaves for $1. They also have restaurant style dark honey bread and seeded rye loaves ... like they serve at Outback and Longhorn and places. These freeze & reheat better than typical sliced loaf bread.

If you've never been in your local Discount Bread store, check it out... you may be hooked. Of course once you get used to the bargain prices, it'll kill you the next time you end up paying $2-$3 for a loaf of bread at the grocery store.

How well does bread freeze? What happens to it when it thaws? (Does the frozen moisture melt and make it soggy?) How long can it be frozen and still be good?

We have taken to keeping our bread in the refrigerator; it's so humid here that it molds in a fraction of the *normal* time. I have a feeling there's mold in the walls of the house we live in as well, but there's nothing we can do about that right now.

I've long been appalled at the price of bread and rolls, and recently discovered there's a bread store nearby. Doesn't do me much good with the low-carb thing, but DH takes sandwiches to school a lot, and he loves pizza rolls when the weather's not too hot. It'd be nice to find some cheap bread that he likes and stock up maybe once a month.

I buy bread several loaves at a time and put them in the freezer for a couple weeks. They only take a few hours to thaw and I have never had a problem with soggy or unfresh bread. It tastes pretty much as if I bought it that day.

Unfortunately for me, our "local" bread store is 35 minutes away from me so the drive is a pain unless I'm already in that area! When I do get over there and buy several loaves of bread, I just put them in the refrigerator and they keep pretty well for quite some time. If they are just a bit stale, I can microwave 2 slices of bread for like 10 seconds and they are perfect again (just eat right away after microwaving or it will get really hard!)

If your bread doesn't stick together when it's frozen (so you can get it apart), you can put frozen bread in the toaster without waiting for it to thaw. Since I am the only one in the house that will eat grain or nut breads (my favorite is sunflower and 12 grain bread), I buy it and freeze it in two slice portions. That way I can just grab a baggie in the morning and take it to work for a snack or lunch.

I hate it that hotdogs buns come in either 8 or 12 to a pack and the dogs come in a 10 pack, so I always freeze the extra buns.

By the way, regular sliced white bread is only $1.44 a loaf. I can't believe some of you are paying $2 to 3 per loaf!

I guess it may depend on where you live and what brand of bread you buy.

Here in GA you can actually buy 'store brand' white or wheat bread on sale for around a dollar most of the time, but a not-on-sale non-store-brand such as Sunbeam or Colonial is usually $2-3 or a little over ... and the higher end brands such as Pepperidge farm and Sara Lee are closer to $3. We can almost always find something on sale but its not always the type we like. The store brand bread around here is not usually available in Rye, Pumpernickle or Sourdough ... I'm not sure about other areas of the country though.

I can usually buy store brand white bread for 79 cents a loaf and our store does carry store brands of rye, pumpernickle, wheat and others. They are usually around $1.50 a loaf but still it is better than some of the higher end brands and they taste pretty good to us.

I always check the dates on the packages. Sometimes it can vary between loaves. Often it varies between sizes or styles. For example, at our Butternut thrift store, the 20 oz. regular white bread might be dated 2 or 3 days out while the 20 oz. square sandwich-style white bread might be dated a full week away at the same price. It never hurts to check!

I love our local discount bread stores. Ours has Arnold's bread and rolls for 50 cents a package. I can usually get it up to a week before the sell by date. I do freeze it for toasting. Some people don't notice or mind the difference between fresh and thawed bread, but my family does. The texture just isn't the same after it has thawed.I think it gets a little "tough". However, when toasted, frozen bread works just fine for us. I still need to make sure the kids have their "squishy" white bread for pb&j sandwiches. The discount store is also great for pre packaged donuts, cupcakes,cookies and pastries. I can get those for .50 to 1.00 a box.

Do not keep bread in the fridge because it will dry out and get stale faster, even when in a plastic bag. I learned this from experience and have also read it in various publications. I always freeze my bread since there's 3 of us and I don't go through it very fast. I wouldn't keep it for more than 2 weeks though because it does start to get that freezer burned taste by then. Also, I never buy store brand as it's less dense and just doesn't taste that great. Maybe some grocers bake a better bread than where I live. I do pay a bit more - $1.50 for brand name and if I want specialty bread I go to the Pepperidge Farm outlet where they always have a bread sale. (Cheap cookies too...)

Wouldn't you know ... after I posted about the GREAT BARGAINS ... both Kroger and Publix have had their store brands of bread on sale for 89 cents and 79 cents ... so the savings isn't AS huge when I use those prices to compare ... but still 50 cents a loaf for Iron Kids, Roman Meal, and various other non-store brands is a good deal.

Has anyone ever heard of being able to tell what day of the week the bread was packaged on by the color of the twist tie? Seems like I read this in a Heloise column or something. It's something like: Blue = MondayGreen = TuesdayRed = Wed and ThursYellow = FriWhite - Sat/Sun

Most breads freeze great, let thaw naturally. Use "fatty" breads like challah, brioche, cinnamon rolls, croissants to make bread pudding. Keep the leftover breads in your freezer until you have enough to make a pan. The more breads - the merrier! Like croutons, this works better with older breads so it can saok up the custard liquids.

Also freeze "older" cakes (like those few pieces of leftover pound cake) and make rumballs during cold weather. Rumballs work better with not so fresh cakes.

I went to the local bread store the other day and found Sara Lee bread (our favorite!) for .50 a loaf.......that's the lowest I've ever been able to buy that bread. Too bad they don't take cpns because that would've been even better, but on the cpns it says they aren't good at outlet stores. As far as freezing the bread, we do it all the time. I use those plastic bags you get from stores and wrap one loaf in each bag and tie it. I had about 60 loaves in the freezer and it took a few months to use it all, and they were just as tasty after they were thawed out.

I also freeze our bread when I find it on sale. I just use large plastic bags (even trash bags work) and put two or more loaves in there, and close up the whole thing. With the double-wrapping, I never get freezer burn. I just take out one loaf at a time and let it thaw at room temperature. It comes out tasting as fresh as if I just bought it that day!

Yesterday, I went to the Entenmann's Outlet. Besides cakes I got Thomas' English Muffins and Sahara Pita bread.

So, today for lunch I made up a batch of Hummus and slopped it on a nice pita bread. As I'm eating it, my husband walks in and I ask if he would like one. He says "What's that on the bottom?" I look and there is a little green mold on the bottom. The last sale date was yesterday, but they were already turned bad.

I bet these stores are a happy home for many molds and we need to be careful what we buy. Only the top pita was bad on the underside. I cut them all up for the birds.

This will not stop me from shopping there, just a warning. Now I'm finally in the mood to eat lunch again and am having an English Muffin Pizza.

It is true what MaureenLu said about the color of the twist tie corresponding to the day of the week that the bread was delivered. Unfortunately, I don't remember the legend as to what color means what day , but I always read expiration dates on bread, anyway, instead of looking at the twist ties. That way you don't have to memorize anything.

On Wednesdays, a local bagel shop has a $3.00 per dozen special. I buy 2 dozen, and freeze 18 bagels (wrapping each seperately in saran wrap). My kids are crazy about bagels, so after school they thaw a few (take the saran wrap off - and wrap in a slightly wet paper towel)in the microwave. You would swear they were baked that day!! Same thing for loves of French or Italian bread.I get inspired every once in a while to make white bread, in my breadmaker. I have not yet found a good way to slice it, for sandwiches. I have one of those bread bow slicing thingies - but alas, is another product designed for right handed people, and I happen to be a "lefty".

At the Poplar Bluff, MO Ideal Bread Outlet store, you can buy the heartline bread that is $1.79 per loaf for 2 loaves for $1.79 and all the buns are 2 for one. Plus you get a card that is punched around the edge for however many dollars you spend. ie-$5.00 gets 5 punches. When you get all around the card, you get $5.00 worth of free bread. Tues. and Saturdays are double punch days.

I went to the local bread store today and I picked up light bread, light snacks, rolls, etc. at pretty good prices compared to the regular grocery store. I always buy wheat and then I have been buing light breads and I find those are at a premium at the regular grocery store so I glad to see they had some selection at the bread store. They even had some sugar free bread if you are into that.

PaulaGold Certified shopping the Houston/Galveston area and IAH Airport since 2002

Do not keep bread in the fridge because it will dry out and get stale faster, even when in a plastic bag. I learned this from experience and have also read it in various publications. I always freeze my bread since there's 3 of us and I don't go through it very fast. I wouldn't keep it for more than 2 weeks though because it does start to get that freezer burned taste by then. Also, I never buy store brand as it's less dense and just doesn't taste that great. Maybe some grocers bake a better bread than where I live. I do pay a bit more - $1.50 for brand name and if I want specialty bread I go to the Pepperidge Farm outlet where they always have a bread sale. (Cheap cookies too...)

This is absolutely true. My husband is a chef, we NEVER refrigerate bread. We freeze all our bread products. We live in Florida, and breads get moldy faster than we can eat them. If you keep a box of baking soda in the freezer, they don't get that freezer taste as quickly. For a sandwich, two slices of bread thaw in minutes, or you can microwave them for a few seconds. Just be careful of microwaving, because there is a fine line between thawing it just right, making it gummy, or making it hard.